About Me

Although I haven't gotten a western made yet, there's interest in a western series I've created (on paper). If you'd like to take a look at the sort of things I write, please visit my website, www.henrycparke.com. Thanks for looking!

MY Q&A WITH INSP-TV

HENRY ON ‘WRITER’S BLOCK’

On July 30th, 2015, I was the guest of hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Christina on ‘Writer’s Block’, their L.A. TALK-RADIO talk-show about the art and craft of writing. You can click PLAY to hear it, or DOWNLOAD to download it.

ROUND-UP ON THE RADIO!

Last Christmastime I was a guest on AROUND THE BARN, and had a great time talking about the Round-up, my writing, and Gene Autry’s Christmas music. To listen, click HERE.

Other Stuff I Write

While this blog is strictly about Western stuff, I also write another blog, Stalling Tactics, which is about anything else. If you'd like to read my most recent post, COSTUME DRAMA TRAUMA, go HERE.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

MGM,
not satisfied with TRUE DETECTIVE creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto’s script for
the remake of the John Sturges 1960 classic THE MAGNIFICENT 7, scripted by
William Roberts, which is itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic
SEVEN SAMURAI, have hired a new writer, and Tom Cruise is no longer attached to
star (we never found out if he was going to play Steve McQueen or Yul Brynner –
or Toshiro Mifune).

The
new scribe is writer/director John Lee Hancock, director of the current SAVING MR.
BANKS, who also wrote and directed THE BLIND SIDE, garnering a Best Picture
Oscar nom, plus a Best Actress nom for Sandra Bullock. More to the point, in relation to doing ‘7’,
he scripted and directed THE ALAMO (2004).

GENE AUTRY DVD COLLECTION 4

Volume four of the Gene Autry DVD collections has
been released, and it features four musical westerns Gene made at Republic
between 1938 and 1942, all with the Republic Tower logo (if you’d like to learn
about the history of Republic’s many logos, check out the site HERE ). The four delightful films, THE OLD
BARN DANCE (1938), BLUE MONTANA SKIES (1939), SIERRA SUE (1941) and COWBOY
SERENADE (1942) all feature sidekick Smiley Burnette, America’s wonder-horse Champion,
and a beautiful, spunky girl -- Helen
Valkis, June Storey, and Fay McKenzie twice, respectively.

The plots are varied, and as usual with Gene’s
pictures, a bit more inventive than most of the B westerns of the era – and the
titles almost never give you a clue. THE
OLD BARN DANCE does feature a barn dance, but it’s about the conflict between
unscrupulous tractor sellers and horse-traders like Gene. It’s directed by arguably the best
action-director Republic ever produced, Joe Kane. BLUE MONTANA SKIES takes Gene north into snow
and onto dog-sleds, and concerns pelt-smuggling and murder, and features
villainous Glenn Strange. MONTANA is
directed by B. Reaves ‘Breezy’ Eason, who started helming films in 1915, and is
considered by many to be the greatest director of big action scenes in
Hollywood history. In addition to his
own films, he often did uncredited second unit direction of chases and battle
scenes, including the chariot race in the original BEN HUR (1925), as well as
action scenes in CIMMARON (1931), THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (1936), GONE
WITH THE WIND (1939) and THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941). He also directed Gene in his Mascot Serial,
THE PAHNTOM EMPIRE, which made Gene a movie star. Needless to say, the
snow-bound action is well-handled and exciting.

SIERRA SUE features Gene and Smiley as state
inspectors trying to stop an outbreak of ‘devil weed’ that could poison the cattle,
banging heads with farmers who don’t trust new, scientific methods. There’s a memorable stampede in this
one. COWBOY SERENADE tells the story of
an innocent young cattle-man who’s given the chance by Gene to negotiate the
sale of a herd, and is swindled by card-sharps and con-men. Gene has to set things right. The young man is Rand Brooks, who in 1939
played Scarlet O’Hara’s first husband in GONE WITH THE WIND, and would become a
sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy in the late 1940s, a TV co-star of Rin Tin Tin in
the 1950s, and starting in the 1960s, built what would become the largest and
most respected ambulance service in the country.

From the frozen north to the Sierras, a highpoint of
all of the films is the stunning, breathtaking photography in dramatic
locations. Back then they knew how to
shoot black and white, using contrast to create every bit as much beauty as you
could with color. All the films run
about an hour each, and have been beautifully restored, taken from Gene’s own
copies. They are complete and uncut. If you’ve ever had the disappointment of
seeing 53-minute bootleg versions of Gene’s films, in addition to the often poor
image quality, you knew right away what was lost in the ten-minutes of missing
footage: Gene’s musical numbers!

Here you get not only the whole movie, with the
proper titles, and good audio quality, but special features that set the mood
as well. Each of the movies is
accompanied by a gallery of images, both stills, lobby cards and posters, from
the film. Each has what is described as ‘Trivia
& Movie Facts’, but they are much more than that. Alex Gordon, who was the President of England’s
Gene Autry Fan Club, came to the U.S. in 1947, and had a considerable career as
a film producer at American International Pictures. He was also advance-man for Gene Autry’s cross-country
tours, and worked for Gene for many years.
He wrote the ‘Trivia & Movie Facts’, which are fascinating time-capsules
of what was going on behind the scenes at the time of each film’s production. Each movie is accompanied by an episode of
the Gene Autry Melody Ranch Radio Show, featuring Gene, Pat Buttram or Smiley
Burnette, and guests like the Cass County Boys, and fellow singing cowboys like
Eddie Dean and Jimmy Wakely.

My favorite special features come from back in 1987,
when The Nashville Network, a
now-gone cable channel, featured a series, MELODY RANCH THEATER. There, Gene and Pat Buttram, sometimes with
guests, would introduce one of Gene’s movies.
These introductions, the middle break, and wrap-up, are included for
each movie (they can’t find the OLD BARN DANCE intro, so another interesting
one has been substituted). The boys were
pretty long in the tooth when they did these, and it sometimes takes them a
while to get the stories out, but it’s a real pleasure to hear them reminisce
about the old days and their co-stars.
You can see that Pat Buttram’s preparation and research are
extensive.

Michael Druxman’s new memoir, whose full title is LIFE,
LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HOLLYWOOD; MORE OF MY WACKY ADVENTURES IN
TINSELTON, comes with a very unusual caveat: don’t read it until you’ve already
read his previous memoir, MY FORTY-FIVE YEARS IN HOLLYWOOD…AND HOW I ESCAPED
ALIVE (here’s my review of that tome:
http://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2011/06/unsinkable-debbie-reynolds.html).

It’s good advice, and I strongly recommend reading both books. Druxman has plenty of good, often great, and
frequently outrageous stories to tell, and rather than repeating himself, he’s
eager to plow ahead.

Michael Druxman has had several careers, all of them
aiming at a career in Hollywood. He
acted and directed plays in Seattle, met and worked with dozens of actors when
he became a publicist in Hollywood, wrote several books about the film
industry, became a successful playwright of one-man shows about movie stars,
and finally became a successful screenwriter and director for Roger Corman. He has not won Oscars, but he has made a
living writing fulltime, and has written some outstanding screenplays,
including the excellent CHEYENNE WARRIOR.

It’s not all about stars – several chapters deal
with his experiences directing plays, without big names, in small theatres in
Seattle. But these are the experiences
that made him the writer and director he would become. A born self-promoter, being a publicist came
easy to him, and his stories about those in front of and behind the camera who
hired him are many and varied, from the very funny to the frustrating to the
sad.

He did well for, and was a close
friend of Michael Ansara. He tried to do
as well for the great director Budd Boetticher, who had worked so hard to
protect his star, Randolph Scott, and his material, but still got screwed out
of directing TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA. He
did well for Eddie Dmytryk, but not as well George Sherman, who John Wayne
hired to direct BIG JAKE. The veteran
director got the interviews he wanted, but his criticism of Mexican film crews
didn’t endear him to the Duke or the Mexican government. Director Paul Landres had a long and
successful career directing western TV series.
He was particularly successful directing difficult animal shows like
FLIPPER and DAKTARI! But when those
shows got cancelled, he had a helluvah time getting any work at all: he’d been
typed as an ‘animal’ director!

Among the writers he grew to know in Hollywood were
the author of LITTLE CAESAR and creator of the gangster movie, W. R. Burnett;
Christopher Isherwood; screenwriting comedy legend Henry Ephron; MUSIC MAN
creator Meredith Wilson; and Tennessee Williams.

On a lighter note, one chapter deals with some of
the…uh…bigger stars in Hollywood, like Uncle Miltie, Forrest Tucker, Gary Cooper,
and especially Rock Hudson. Later
chapters are particularly informative about matters like working for Roger
Corman, trying to get plays produced, and pet projects Druxman has tried tried
to make ‘happen’ for years. Of
particular interest to writers, later chapters deal in a very informative and ‘nuts-and-bolts’
sense with the business of getting your book published, print-on-demand
publishing, e-books, and audio books. I
personally learned plenty, and was encouraged, by these chapters. Michael even takes the reader into the business
of self-publishing and autograph shows.

An eye-opening memoir full of great stories and sage
advice, LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HOLLYWOOD is published by Bear Manor
Media, and priced at $19.95. Here's the link to the Bear Manor site:

I hope you’ve all recovered from Christmas, and are
ready for New Years! This is nothing
western, but when I was a kid growing up in New York City, every New Years Eve
a local channel would show the Jack Benny comedy THE HORN BLOWS AT MIDNIGHT
(1945), which I consider a perfect New Years movie. Jack plays an angel sent to New York City to
blow Gabriel’s trumpet at midnight, and destroy the planet. It’s a great Warner Brothers comedy with a
wonderful supporting cast: Alexis Smith, Guy Kibbee, Allyn Joslyn, Reginald
Gardner, Bobby Blake, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont, Mike Mazurki. The art direction in Heaven is stunning, and
it’s directed with great verve and enthusiasm by Raoul Walsh.

Nonetheless, it was a bomb, that pretty much
ended Jack Benny’s career as a movie star.
Anyway, I have a DVD dub of a lousy, commercial-filled VHS copy off of
channel 5 twenty years ago, and it’s a grand tradition at our house to watch it on New Years. Although, to be really honest it’s become a
grand tradition for me to watch it by myself – my wife and daughter are sick to
death of it. Luckily, my dog has only
seen it once, so I may have some company.
If you get a chance to, some time, watch it! Hey, are there any good New Years westerns?

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2013 by
Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

Monday, December 23, 2013

Saturday afternoon’s book signing at Burbank’s Dark Delicacies produced an interesting
crowd on both sides of the tables. Last-minute
Christmas-shoppers and die-hard fans filled the place. First at the table was Michael Druxman,
longtime Hollywood publicist-turned-screenwriter and director for Roger
Corman. CHEYENNE WARRIOR, which he
wrote, is one of the best western films of the last twenty years. He was signing his short-story collection, DRACULA MEETS JACK THE RIPPER
AND OTHER REVISIONIST HISTORIES, plus his Basil Rathbone biography, and his
newest volume of memoirs, LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HOLLYWOOD, which
I’ll be reviewing soon in the Round-up.

C. Courtney Joyner and Michael Druxman

Next to
him was
C. Courtney Joyner, whose first Western novel, SHOTGUN has just been
published. The press has been excellent
(you’ll be reading my review shortly), and publisher Pinnacle is delighted –
they’ve already signed Court for several more.
Court was also signing the Grindhouse
Releasing new release of Sergio Sollima’s THE BIG GUNDOWN, starring Lee Van
Cleef (read about it HERE),
which Court wrote the liner notes for. Court
and I did the audio commentary on BIG GUNDOWN, and he kept signing them and
sending them to me. It was my first time
signing autographs, an ego-swelling experience!
And who turned up for a couple of copies of SHOTGUN by Bob Murawski,
Oscar-winning editor of THE HURT LOCKER, and President of Grindhouse Releasing.

Bob Murawski getting SHOTGUN signed

L.Q. Jones and Courtney Joyner

Sitting beside Court was the biggest draw of the
event, Western screen legend L.Q. Jones.
Beloved and remembered for dozens of eccentric and frightening
characters, from CASINO to THE WILD BUNCH – where he and Strother Martin played
the most revolting bounty hunters in history – many fans don’t realize he’s a very
accomplished writer and director as well.
He was signing new BluRay releases of three of his films, THE
BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN, A BOY AND HIS DOG (and featuring interviews with Jones
and story author Harlan Ellison), both written and directed by Jones, and THE
BEAST WITHIN, in which he costars. Beside
L.Q. Jones was BEAST WITHIN director Philip Moran, who also directed the
Australian western MAD DOG MORGAN.
Beside Moran was actor Paul Clemens, also of THE BEAST WITHIN.

John Gulager, L.Q. Jones, Paul Clemens, Philip Moran,

Courtney Joyner; seated, Dave Del Valle

Rolfe Kanefsky

Signing BluRays of his new movie ZOMBIE NIGHT,
starring Anthony Michael Hall, Daryl Hannah and Shirley Jones, was director
John Gulager. John is the son of Western
legend Clu Gualger, who also dropped by for the event. Also
by to get some books signed was prolific writer-director Rolfe Kanefsky. He told me that STAND YOUR GROUND, now
retitled DOC HOLLIDAY’S REVENGE, which he scripted and David Decoteau directed,
is now edited and ready for release from Lionsgate. I’ll have more details on this project,
including my interview with Rolfe, in the near future.

Clu Gulager signing a scroll

LONE RANGER CONTEST – THE WINNERS!

I am truly impressed with my Round-up readers’
knowledge. I didn’t want the contest to
be ridiculously easy, so I did the match-the-Ranger-to-the-Tonto, figuring most
folks couldn’t answer it off the top of their heads – I know I couldn’t. Well, I posted at 11 p.m. on Sunday night,
and at 1:50 a.m., Monday morning, I received my first entry – and it was a
winner. The next entry, a 5:15 a.m., was
also a winner, and as the entries began to come in faster, I kept checking
them, and after a dozen, I saw that every one was correct!

8. John
Hart, A. Jay Silverheels in THE LONE RANGER (TV series 1952-1953)

And now, the winners!
The first winner of the LONE RANGER set, including a Blu-Ray, DVD
and Digital copy in Ronald Wallace of Rochester, New York!Our second winner is Yusuf S. Nasrullah of
Boston, Massachusetts!I will be sending them their prizes as soon as
they come from the Walt Disney Company, and I’m grateful to them, and to everyone
who entered.Aside from movie premiere
tickets a couple of years ago, this is our first giveaway, and I’m happy to say
we’ll be doing more very soon.But now,
having had a little experience, I think I have a more fair way of choosing
winners than just the first correct entries.Instead, I’ll be accepting entries for several days, and randomly
choosing winners from among all
correct entries.

MY APPEARANCE ON ‘AROUND THE BARN’ AVAILABLE ON PODCAST!

I had a wonderful time on Saturday, December 14th,
as a guest on ‘Around The Barn,’ on KHTS radio 1220 AM in Santa Clarita. The topic was ‘It’s all about Gene Autry,’
the regulars were hosts Nancy Pitchford-Zhe and Bobbi Jean Bell, and Roy
Rogers’ and Dale Evans’ granddaughter Julie Fox Pomilia. The guests were Gene Autry Enterprises
President Karla Buhlman, and myself. We
listened to some of Gene’s great Christmas music, and discussed his music and
TV career, and also spoke quite a bit about me and the Round-up. I was fascinated! If you, too would like to be fascinated,
follow the link below and you can hear the podcast: http://hometownstation.com/on-air-features/podcasts/around-barn/around-barn-december-14-2013-39565

In addition to showing Westerns scattered throughout
their schedule all through the month, Sony Movie Channel is offering a fine mix
of sagebrush binge-viewing fun! On New
Years Day, starting at 7:30 a.m. Eastern time, and running for about twenty
hours, they’ll be playing THE LONGEST DRIVE (from the 1976 series THE QUEST, starring
Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson); three Randolph Scott’s, THE NEVADAN, THE TALL T, and COMANCHE
STATION; two Karl May Winnetou westerns, FRONTIER HELLCAT featuring
Elke Sommer and RAMPAGE AT APACHE WELLS featuring Terrence Hill when he
was still playing villains, and both starring Pierre Brice and Stewart Granger;
three Columbia westerns starring Philip
Carey before he became the boss on LARDEO, MASSACRE CANYON, WYOMING RENEGADES,
and THE NEBRASKAN; Louis L’Amour’s THE SHADOW RIDERS starring Tom
Sellick and Sam Elliot as the Traven brothers; Richard Brooks’ exuberant BITE
THE BULLET, starring Gene Hackman, James Coburn and Candice Bergen; and ending with MACKENNA’S GOLD, featuring a great cast,
including Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas and Julie Newmar – she told
me it’s her favorite of all her western appearances.

Then on Saturday, January 25th,
through Sunday the 26th, starting at 5:10 a.m., they reprise

On Monday night, December 16th, movie
makers and movie fans gathered at the famous Sportsmen’s Lodge for the Southern
California Motion Picture Council’s Halo Awards. Begin in 1936, the Council is one of the
oldest civic-minded industry organizations in town, and annually they give out
their Halo lifetime achievement awards.
Julie Ann Ream has been presenting her Western Legend Awards for several
years, a tradition she began to honour her late uncle Rex Allen, the last of
the great singing cowboys. For the first
time, the Western Legend Award has been made a part of SCMPC’s awards, and
Julie is delighted at the prospect of Western Legend having a permanent home,
as it has been hopscotching across the nation.
The Western Legend to be honoured that night was actress Angie
Dickinson, the award presented by her POLICE WOMAN co-star Earl Holliman.

I’ll have details about that part of the event later
(I’m waiting to get my hands on some photos), but I had the great pleasure of
chatting with a pair of stars who were ‘Halo’ honorees that night, Stuart
Whitman and Julie Newmar. Whitman, who had come with his lovely wife
from their home in Santa Barbara, still with still-boyish smile and clear,
cultured voice, is best remembered by Western fans for two roles; as Paul
Regret, opposite John Wayne – who keeps calling him ‘Mon-sewer’ – in THE
COMANCHEROS, and as Marshal Jim Crown in the short-lived but excellent CIMARRON
STRIP; you’ll never see any actor sit a horse better than Stuart Whitman in the
opening credits of that series. But of
course, he didn’t start with those leading roles.

Stuart Whitman (not a great shot, but my head-on

shots were all washed out. I'm asking Santa for a new camera)

HENRY: I was just watching a ROY ROGERS SHOW, and so
surprised to see you in it. Did doing
shows like that, like THE RANGE RIDER, kid stuff, help prepare you for the more
adult, serious Westerns later on?

STUART WHITMAN: Oh, absolutely. That’s where we learned to do it all.

HENRY: Did you like westerns when you were a kid?

STUART WHITMAN:
Oh yes. And what was that theatre on Hollywood Boulevard? The Hitching Post. And we could bring our cap-guns. I’d just come from New York. I was born in San Francisco, I’d just come
from New York. And wow, we could have
our cap-guns! Pow! Pow!
Shoot all the bad guys and the Indians.
Henry, I understand there’s a bar
around here.

Julie Newmar

A few minutes later, beautiful Julie Newmar, the
best Catwoman of them all, appeared. I
tried to think of her Western credits.
She was lovely in 7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS, and she was positively
stupefying in LI’L ABNER (okay, a stretch for a Western).

HENRY: What
is your favorite of all your westerns?

JULIE NEWMAR: MACKENNA’S GOLD! In the most beautiful part of America, Utah,
Arizona. Even Robert Kennedy came there
to visit us. He was there with a family
of about thirty people. Omar Sharif,
Gregory Peck, Edward G. Robinson – marvelous cast!

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Here’s wishing you a very Merry Christmas!I hope everything you want the most turns up
under your tree!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2013 by
Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

Sunday, December 15, 2013

If you had told me that 2013 would bring a more controversial Western to the screen
than the previous year’s DJANGO UNCHAINED from Quentin Tarentino, I’d have said
you were crazy. But 2013’s THE LONE
RANGER, directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, ruffled
more feathers than any other Western I can recall in decades. As a matter of fact, Tarantino himself
surprised many when he put LONE RANGER on his own ‘ten best list’ for 2013. "The first 45 minutes are excellent… It was
a bad idea to split the bad guys in two groups; it takes hours to explain and
nobody cares. Then comes the train
scene—incredible! When I saw it, I kept thinking, 'What? That's the film that everybody says is crap?
Seriously?'"

There is one shameful omission in
the film which I missed at the screening, but caught watching the BluRay: when
the credits roll, nowhere are the names of Frank Striker and George W. Trendle,
the men who created the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and in the case of Striker,
wrote hundreds of radioplays refining the characters. It is a disgrace that neither name appears on
the screen, and should be remedied.

LONE RANGER is coming to home video this Tuesday, December
17th, and the good folks at Disney have given the Round-up a pair of
BLU-RAY/DVD/DIGITAL Combo-Packs to award to two lucky Round-up readers. You’ll find the contest below, after all the
review-type-stuff. (If you want to skip
to the contest, and read the rest of this later, I’ll understand.)

LONE RANGER Movie Review

Originally posted July 1, 2013

It looks like director Gore Verbinski, producer
Jerry Bruckheimer, and writers Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, and Justin Haythe have
done what no one else has managed to do in decades: make a new Western that
will delight and satisfy die-hard fans of the genre and the characters, and
introduce the form to a young and fresh audience who will hopefully want to
come back again and again.

Among the fine major Westerns of the last several
years, 3:10 TO YUMA (2007), APPALOOSA (2008), and DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012) were
rated ‘R’. TRUE GRIT (2010), like LONE RANGER, was ‘PG-13’, and featured a
child protagonist in Mattie Ross, but there was no great ‘reach-out’ to a
younger audience. But ‘The Lone Ranger’,
since its inception in Depression-era radio, through two Republic serials and
217 TV episodes and three feature films, has always been for kids, and this new
version, as the same production team did with their PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN
franchise, has built a movie that will draw in the interest of kids while
exposing them to the classic elements of westerns, which have delighted
audiences for generations, nay, for over a century.

I know there will be classicists who will accept no
substitutes for Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, and I can only tell them
that they’re missing out on something they would thoroughly enjoy – a Western
made with so much money that there is nothing
left out because of budgetary restraints, made by people who have a clear
love, respect for and knowledge of the genre, and who flex the art and craft
they’ve honed for years. Is it
perfect? No. Will you love the best parts so much that
you’ll forgive its imperfections? Hell,
yeah! This is not a museum piece, it is
living, breathing – sometimes hyperventilating – art that builds on the past
without requiring a knowledge of the past to be appreciated.

The story opens, unexpectedly, at a carnival in San
Francisco in 1933, perhaps not coincidentally the year The Lone Ranger
premiered on WXYZ radio. Will, a little
boy with astonished and astonishingly large brown eyes, all dressed up in a
cowboy suit and six-guns, is visiting a nearly-empty side-show, examining the
stuffed bison and other displays, and jumps with surprise when an ancient
Indian figure sitting outside a tepee, a crow atop his head, suddenly comes to
life, and seeing the boy with a black mask on, addresses him as “Kemo
Sabe.” It is, you guessed it, Tonto,
looking easily ninety. They talk, the
boy frightened at first, but soon fascinated, as Tonto tells him the story of
his relationship with John Reid. Soon
the old Indian’s words take on visuals, and the story of how Tonto and John
Reid met, and how Reid becomes the Lone Ranger, begins.

Most of the story revolves around Promontory, Utah,
and the upcoming driving of the golden railroad spike that will complete the
laying of track for the Transcontinental Railroad, linking the East and West
coasts of these United States together.
As a demonstration that peace and civilization have come to the
frontier, railroad magnate Cole has ordered that the most despicable of
villains, Butch Cavendish, already sentenced to die, be brought there by train,
to hang. Also being transported is a
lesser criminal named Tonto. A group of
Texas Rangers are on the way to assist, while the Cavendish gang is on the way
to thwart the law. On the train is John
Reid, a young lawyer from a family of lawmen, coming out west to reunite with
his family.

When all of these people with differing plans
collide, you have one of the two tremendous train-bound extended action
sequences that book-end the movie, and it is so beautifully constructed that it’s
exalting to watch – it’s everything you’re hoping for, and more. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say they don’t
get to hang Butch Cavendish that day.
The hunt for Cavendish and his gang, and his hostages, and the search
for an insidious conspiracy, drives the movie through two hours and twenty
minutes of thrills, action and humor.

Much has been said, in anticipation of this film,
about the diminishing of the Lone Ranger to build up Tonto. That isn’t what happened. Instead, the story is, as it always has been,
about the creation of the man, the identity, of the Lone Ranger; but this time,
it is told from Tonto’s point of view.
And it works – after all, Tonto is who he always is. It’s John Reid who takes on the new identity,
and telling the ‘why’ is the purpose of the film.

The original masked man and faithful Indian
companion had little back-story, and these have been expanded, giving more heart
and humanity and motivation to the characters, and not a few surprises. John Reid still has a brother, Texas Ranger
Dan Reid, but there is also a woman in his heart, who just happens to be,
awkwardly enough, not his wife, but his sister-in-law. We learn about John Reid’s background early
on, but only discover the astonishing truth about Tonto as the story races
along. The mask is there. The silver bullets are there, but while they
were a minor part of the story of the original Lone Ranger, they take on
startling significance in this telling.

Johnny Depp’s characterization of Tonto borrows
nothing from Jay Silverheels, which is good, because we don’t want an
imitation, we want a performance, and we get it. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen Depp do before,
diametrically opposed to his theatrical-to-swishy personification of Captain
Jack Sparrow. But it is still Depp, and
his dramatic work, as well as his comedic timing, are spot-on as always. More poker-faced then stoic, he reveals his
emotions with his words and actions, almost never his expression. Depp is virtually unrecognizable in his two
distinct make-ups, as the young, and as the very old Tonto, and the masterful
work by the make-up department under the direction of Joel Harlow is worthy of Oscar
consideration. Incidentally, Depp’s
previous westerns are the highly regarded DEADMAN, directed by Jim Jarmusch,
and last year’s animated RANGO.

As the man who transitions from by-the-book lawyer
to masked crime-fighter, Armie Hammer impressed as twins in THE SOCIAL NETWORK
and as J. Edgar Hoover’s lover in HOOVER.
His look of doe-eyed innocence works perfectly with his character’s
self-assured arrogance early in the story.
But in addition to the comedy, and he does play Costello to Tonto’s
Abbott, he has a sincere believability which makes the pain of his many
personal losses in the story moving to the audience.

Striking British actress Ruth Wilson is effective as
brother Dan Reid’s wife and mother of their son Danny (Bryant Prince), and
projects that sort of inner strength we associate with frontier ladies. She also has a lovely face for period
stories. James Badge Dale plays John’s
more down-to-earth and down-and-dirty brother, Ranger Dan Reid, with the
traditional restraint of the western hero, but with heart and courage.

Among the less likable characters is Tom Wilkinson
as Cole, the railroad mogul more interested in profit than progress. As Butch Cavendish, William Fitchner, star of
the series CROSSING LINES, excels, portraying a character so revolting in his
passions that I wouldn’t dare spoil things by giving it away here. His make-up, including a hair-lip is, like
Depp’s Oscar-worthy.

Other performances of note include Helena Bonham
Carter as Red, a madam with valuable information and an ivory leg. Barry Pepper plays the dashing Fuller, a
character modeled on Custer. No stranger
to westerns, he was Lucky Ned Pepper in the TRUE GRIT remake, and even turned
up on episodes of both LONESOME DOVE spin-off series. Saginaw Grant impresses as Chief Big Bear in
a scene where the Lone Ranger learns about the earlier life of Tonto. Mason Cook, who plays the little cowboy in
the introductory scene is, surprisingly, a western veteran, having well-played
a key role in last year’s WYATT EARP’S REVENGE.

Leon Rippy, who plays the key role of the tracker
Collins, is disguised from his DEADWOOD fans (where he played Tom Nuttal) with
a revolting spray of facial hair, gives a sometimes comic, sometimes emotional,
and dramatically critical performance.
And though it’s just a cameo, it’s nice to see Western veteran Rance
Howard as a train engineer.

From the moment the action moves from Depression San
Francisco to the old west, the delights are many, with extra kicks for we
western nerds. The filmmakers express
their reverence for Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST frequently, and
in a way that cleverly extends the honors farther still. The building-of-the-railroad through
Monument Valley echoes not only Segio Leone’s similar use of the location in ONCE
UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, but also reminds us that Leone was paying his respects
to John Ford. An early scene at a
railroad station brings back not just the opening of IN THE WEST, but it’s
homage to Zinneman’s HIGH NOON. A later
scene of growing menace in an isolated farm acknowledges not just IN THE WEST,
but Leone’s love of George Steven’s SHANE.
For that matter, when a train-board revival meeting features, “We Will
Gather At The River,” it’s not just a salute to Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH,
but to John Ford and all of the other filmmaker who’ve used it. And if you don’t know that guns will be drawn
before the end of that hymn, then
this must be your first rodeo.

Are there some flaws? Sure.
It’s funny when it should be, but sometimes it gets too jokey, and after
you’ve been emotionally involved, you’re pulled out of the story by the
silliness. There’s a visit to ‘hell on
wheels’, a traveling amalgam of sinful entertainments to entice the
track-layers, that is amusing, but grinds the action to a halt for too
long.

I saw the movie at Disney Studios, with an audience
of other press and industry types, but mostly with families with exuberant kids
who just ate it up. The one criticism I
heard the most? “The Lone Ranger spends
too much time being stupid.”
Dramatically, it’s logical to delay the transition from dope to hero for
as long as possible, but for those of us who knew what must ultimately be
coming, the wait was sometimes frustrating.
But don’t worry – you do get
the William Tell Overture in the nick of time, and from that moment on the film
is an enthralling gun-battle and two-train chase to the finish.

Yugoslavian-born cinematographer Bojan Bazelli
shoots like he’s been doing westerns all of his life. Hans Zimmer’s score is big and grand as it
should be, and while there are musical motifs that are a nod of respect to
Ennio Morricone, they are nods, and not imitations. Art Director Jeff Gonchor
was nominated for an Oscar for TRUE GRIT, and continues to do meticulous work,
including the three trains and two towns which were all built from
scratch. Penny Rose, who has done the
costumes for all of the PIRATES films, has a beautiful eye for westerns as well. I’ve seen five big new summer movies in the
past week, and THE LONE RANGER is miles ahead of all the rest! Hi-yo Silver!
Away!

LONE RANGER – The Special Features

There are three featurettes included, all of them
entertaining and informative.

ARMIE’S WESTERN ROAD TRIP lets the star provide an
overview of the movie’s many locations – Monument Valley, New Mexico, Colorado,
Utah, Comanche Country – and a sense of the challenges the cast and crew faced
in each.

BECOMING A COWBOY details the ‘boot camp’ experience
of the actors being trained with horses and guns for the film.

RIDING THE RAILS OF ‘THE LONE RANGER’ is the most
interesting of all the special features, documenting the building of the
trains, the laying of five miles of track, and the work of the gandy dancers
who swung the sledges.

Additionally, there’s an amusing BLOOPER REEL, and a
single DELETED SCENE, but like nothing I’ve seen before, as the scene is done
entirely in 3D animation – fascinating!

THE CONTEST: MATCH THE ‘RANGER’ AND THE ‘TONTO’

Here’s what you need to do to win one of the two
LONE RANGER BluRay/DVD/Digital sets!

On the left are numbered the names of the men who
played the Lone Ranger, and on the right are lettered the men who played Tonto
(I left out an unsold pilot version, but hopefully didn’t miss any others). And no, it’s not a mistake that some of the ‘Tontos’ appear more than once.

Match the correct Rangers to the correct Tontos, and
in an email, type them together (9J for example), include your name and mailing
(snail-mail) address, and email your entry to swansongmail@sbcglobal.net . The
first two entries I receive that do all of the match-ups correctly will win the
LONE RANGER sets. This contest is for readers
in the domestic U.S. only – the discs wouldn’t play correctly in other regions
anyway. Good luck, Kemo Sabe!

1)Robert Livingston A)Jay
Silverheels

2)William Conrad B)Chief
Thundercloud

3)Brace Beemer C)Michael
Horse

4)Lee Powell A)Jay
Silverheels

5)Clayton Moore D)Johnny
Depp

6)Klinton Spillsbury E)John
Todd

7)Armie Hammer F)Ivan
Naranjo

8)John Hart B)Chief Thundercloud

Winners will be announced in next week's Round-up!

THE COMPLETE ‘GENE AUTRY SHOW’ ON DVD!

A Home Video Review

One season at a time, Gene Autry Enterprises has been overseeing the restoration of THE GENE
AUTRY SHOW. It’s been a long-term
commitment, a tremendous undertaking by the Timeless
Media Group, Shout! Factory, and Gene’s own Flying ‘A’ Pictures Incorporated. Now they’ve gathered all five seasons together
and released them in a complete 91 episode, 47 hour set!

Depending on your age, and where you grew up, these
shows may be entirely new to you, or fondly remembered pieces of your
childhood. Either way, they stand up
beautifully 63 years after the series first ran. And the more I see of murky, shaky, duped
prints, the more I admire the vision of Gene Autry, who acquired the rights to
all of his movies and TV shows, to make sure that they were maintained in the
highest possible quality.

Gene spent more than two years studying the
difference between movies and television before shooting his first episode,
analyzing questions like what is the best way to show action on a tiny, blurry
screen. He concluded that his television
movies would have less long-shots, more close-ups, and more side-to-side rather
than head-on action.

Why was Gene, just back from the war, eager to get
into the new market? In Gene’s own words,
“Like everyone else in show business, I had
become very much interested in the possibilities of television. And, in
addition, I had a special reason for wanting to hit the video channels. During
my three and a half years in the service, a whole new generation of children
had been born. These youngsters are still too young to attend many movies (if
at all), but they’re not too young to watch television. And in these days,
cowboy fans, like charity, begin at home.”

Gene wanted to build a pipeline of
new fans from the TV series to his films at the movie theatres. But movie exhibitors, whose
venues were disappearing with the competition of the new medium of television,
were not at all pleased when he decided to make shows directly for TV. Some even cancelled their contracts to play
his pictures, saying no one would buy a ticket to see him when they could watch
him on TV for free. To show how
different the show-biz world of the 1950s was from today, Gene correctly
countered that by-and-large, only rural areas played his movies, while only big
cities had TV stations, so his films and TV shows were serving almost completely
different markets. He further pointed
out that his new Columbia-produced
films were not getting the playdates they should, because exhibitors, to save
money, were instead booking his pre-war Republic
films, which he didn’t own (yet).

One thing that set THE GENE AUTRY SHOW apart from
its competitors was that the episodes were approached as self-contained
mini-movies. In THE ROY ROGERS SHOW, THE
LONE RANGER, or HOPALONG CASSIDY, the identities and relationships of
characters were always the same. In
Autry’s series, just like in his theatrical movies, Gene could be a lawman or a
ranch hand or a well-known entertainer, and sidekick Pat Buttram could be an
old compadre, or someone he just met. Sometimes
Pat is the sheriff who hires Gene as his deputy! It made for a wider variety of story
possibilities. And also consistent with
Gene’s features, there is always music, a not preachy but clear core of
morality, and comedy supplied by Pat Buttram, who is very . And there’s plenty of fighting and riding
action, what Gene Autry Enterprises President Karla Buhlman calls ‘the five
minute rule’ – that’s the maximum time allowed between fistfights!

The shows often do feel like a very tight little
movie rather than a TV episode, and the casts are peppered with actors who had
worked with Gene in features, or would star in the shows he produced. Dickie Jones, who would star in both THE
RANGE RIDER and BUFFALO BILL JR. series; Gail Davis, who would do a number of
features with Gene before he cast her as Annie Oakley; Myron Healy, a smug
villain with more than 300 acting credits; Denver Pyle; SUPERMAN villain Ben
Weldon; Abbott & Costello’s ‘Mike the cop’, Gordon Jones; and Harry Harvey,
who almost always the sheriff both to Gene, and in Roy Rogers’ town of Mineral
City. There are also actors just
starting on their career ascent like Denver Pyle, and Lee Van Cleef – in the
season 3 episode, Gene beats Lee within an inch of his life!

In addition to about six episodes per disc, most of
the fourteen discs include a special feature selected to place the shows in a
historical context. Among the
entertainments are photo-galleries of Gene on vending cards; Gene starring in
MELODY RANCH RADIO SHOWS; a photo gallery of Gene’s 1953 tour on England; and Gene’s
movie trailers.

And even if you’ve bought all of the individual
seasons, there is one disc you do not have.
Back in the 1970s, in order to raise money to buy the rights to some of
his features, Gene sold off the rights to the four other TV series he
produced. Although Autry Enterprises no longer owns them, the bonus disc includes two
episodes from each of those series, all of them period westerns. ANNIE OAKLEY, starring Gail Davis, was the
most popular of Gene’s other productions, especially with girls who loved that Annie
was the hero, and in charge, without anyone needing to comment on how unusual
it was. She was also beautiful. THE RANGE RIDER starred Jock Mahoney and
Dickie Jones, two of the best horsemen and stuntmen in the business. The shows were non-stop action, and thrilling
to watch. Dick Jones followed up as
BUFFALO BILL JR., which was more small-kid-aimed, but still a lot of fun. THE ADVENTURES OF CHAMPION starred Gene’s
horse, with 12-year-old Barry Curtis as the only kid who can ride him, and
former ‘Red Ryder’ Jim Bannon as his dad.
There is a pair of episodes from THE GENE AUTRY SHOW as well.

If you’re an adult watching for your own enjoyment,
you can watch the shows any way you want – binge-view a season, watch them
chronologically, jump around randomly.
After all, each show stands up well on their own. But if you’re going to show them to kids, I have
a suggestion: start with season five.
While all the rest of the shows are in black and white (except for two
from season one), the thirteen episodes of season five are in beautiful
color. Over the years I have introduced literally
thousands of schoolkids to Laurel & Hardy, when a class had worked hard all
day, and had earned a treat for the last twenty minutes of the school day. But I learned that I had to use the colorized
versions – they simply wouldn’t look at black and white. But once you’ve got them hooked – on Gene or
Laurel & Hardy – they’ll not only watch black & white, they’ll even
listen to the radio shows!

After re-reading the above, I fear I have
shortchanged Pat Buttram, who is Gene’s sidekick in the series. Pat was a very bright and clever guy, and
seamlessly mixing ‘dumb-guy’ humor was a wry, observational wit. Incidentally, there was one time during
season one when Pat was nearly killed by a prop cannon. For the next several episodes actors Fuzzy
Knight, Alan Hale Jr. and Chill Wills took turns donning Pat’s duds and filling
in for him (you can learn more about this HERE in my review of PAT BUTTRAM, ROCKING CHAIR HUMORIST).

If you’re looking for a highly enjoyable way to
spend forty-seven hours, I highly recommend THE COMPLETE GENE AUTRY SHOW. And if you’d like to learn more about Gene
Autry, and how he ran his business, please read my interview with Gene Autry Enterprises President Karla
Buhlman HERE .

KARL MAY – HITLER’S
FAVORITE COWBOY!

Once again I have to
thank Karl Tiedemann, who never misses a thing on BBC radio. Here’s a half hour podcast about the world’s
most popular western writer, German 19th century author Karl
May. Virtually unknown in the
English-speaking world, everywhere else he’s the King of the Cowboys. Here’s the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jz22h

ENNIO MORRICONE TO MAKE U.S. DEBUT IN MARCH!

Back in October of 2009, many of us followers of the
great maestro of the Italian cinema – especially of the Leone spaghetti western
– were crushed when, due to health concerns, Morricone had to cancel his
Hollywood Bowl performance. Now, under
the sponsorship of TCM, the brilliant composer with over 520 scores to his
credit, will have his first United States tour in March, starting with an
appearance at the Los Angeles Nokia Theatre on March 20th, followed
by a New York appearance three days later.
It’s not yet clear whether more dates will be added. He will be working with a 200 piece orchestra
and choir. It’s not something you see –
or hear – every day. You can learn more
HERE

.

‘BILLY JACK’ STAR TOM LAUGHLIN DIES AT 82

Just as I was about to post, I got word that Tom
Laughlin, writer, director and star of the BILLY JACK movies of the 1970s, has
died. A self-made filmmaker and movie
star, Tom loved Westerns, and in addition to the contemporary BILLY JACK films,
where he played an American Indian with martial arts skills, he also appeared
in THE MASTER GUNFIGHTER, THE LITTLEST HORSE THIEVES, and did a cameo as a
member of the Butch Cavendish gang in 1981’s LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER. I had the pleasure of hearing him and his
wife and partner Delores Taylor talk about their lives and careers in October
2012, when he was honored with a SILVER SPUR AWARD. You can read what he had to say, and the rest
of the article, HERE .

THAT’S A WRAP!

I had a terrific time
Saturday morning, being a guest on the ‘AROUND THE BARN’ chatting
with these charming ladies – Roy Rogers’ and Dale Evans’ granddaughter Julie
Fox Pomilia; host Nancy Pitchford-Zhe; Gene Autry Enterprises President Karla
Buhlman; and OutWest purveyor and host Bobbi Jean Bell, on KHTS 1220 AM in
Santa Clarita. We discussed Gene Autry,
what’s coming in the Round-up, and we heard a lot of Gene’s great Christmas
music. I was given a pair of delightful
Gene Autry Christmas CDs, and my wife and I loved listening to them as we drove
to and from a Christmas party that night.
It doesn’t begin and end with RUDOLPH and HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS – there’s
also FREDDIE THE LITTLE FIR TREE, and many more. Bobbi Jean has them all HERE

If you missed AROUND THE BARN, or if you want to hear it again and again (and who
can blame you?), I’ll be posting the link as soon as the Podcast is
available.

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2013 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved